A few months ago, Governor Gavin Newsom and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond appointed a task force to make recommendations to the State Legislature about the needed reforms of the state charter law. Of the 11 people on the Task Force, several had ties to the charter industry, two work for the California Charter Schools Association, and others are employed by charter schools. I had my doubts. But Superintendent Thurmond read my posts and called me to say, don’t judge me until you see what happens.
When the report was released, it was clear that a majority voted for important reforms of the charter law, while the charter advocates fought against, for example, allowing districts to take into account the fiscal impact of new charters on existing public schools. This was their way of saying, “let us drive public schools into fiscal crisis.” The Task Force did not agree.
Twenty percent of students in LA attend charters. At least 80% of LA charters have vacancies, contrary to phony claims about “long waiting lists.” The UTLA commissioned an audit which concluded that public schools lose $600 million every year to charters.
Howard Blume explained the recommendations of the Task Force report in the Los Angeles Times.
Blume writes:
When Los Angeles teachers went on strike in January, a major issue was charter schools: Union leaders talked about halting the growth of these privately operated campuses and exerting more local control over where and how these schools operate.
California took a step in that direction last week with the release of a much-awaited report by a task force set up in the wake of the six-day walkout.
The report supports new restrictions on charters and is expected to shape statewide policy.
One of the most important recommendations was to give a school district more authority when a charter seeks to open within its boundaries. Under current law, a school district must approve the opening of any charter that meets basic requirements.
The idea was to spark competition and give parents high-quality options for their children — and thousands of parents have responded enthusiastically. Charters enroll nearly one in five students in the nation’s second-largest school system.
But one result has been a proliferation of charters in some neighborhoods. Because state funding is based on enrollment, charters as well as district schools have been hard-pressed to attract enough students to remain financially viable, making it difficult to provide a stable academic program.
To address that situation, the task force recommends allowing a school district to forbid the opening of a new charter based on “saturation.” Charter critics say saturation already has become a problem in Boyle Heights and parts of South Los Angeles.
The recommendation on saturation received endorsement from the entire panel, which includes representatives of charter schools.
A smaller bloc, but still a panel majority, would go further. It recommended that school districts be able to deny a proposed charter based on financial harm to the host school district.
The panel did not release details on how individual members voted, but charter groups have vehemently opposed such a restriction. They have argued it could be used to deny any charter petition.
“There are elements that are deeply concerning and require more work ahead,” said Myrna Castrejón, president of the California Charter Schools Assn. “But ultimately, these efforts will play a pivotal role in charting a path forward for California’s students….”
One problem up and down the state has been inconsistent oversight of charters. The panel said California should create one or more entities to develop consistent standards and to train school districts in how to use them.
Some recommendations received majority but not unanimous favor, including limiting when another agency can overrule a local school district’s decision to reject a new charter or close down an existing one.
A majority also wanted to prohibit school districts from authorizing charters located outside district boundaries. Some tiny districts used these faraway charters to generate revenue but provided little to no oversight, as outlined in a Times investigation.
A panel majority also recommended a one-year moratorium on “virtual” charters, which enroll students in an online program. Prosecutors recently indicted 11 people from online charters on criminal charges of conspiracy, personal use of public money without legal authority, grand theft and financial conflict of interest.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Now it’s up to the governor and the California Legislature. If Marshall Tuck had beaten Tony Thurmond in the election, the task force would have made one recommendation only, a recommendation to require that every public school student give charter investors some pocket money every day or get beaten up by the flagpole at three o’clock.
It appears that the charter industry in California has finally realized that the many scandals have finally revealed how the loopholes in the law have attracted people who either started schools with an explicit goal of stealing as much money as possible, or that obvious lax oversight has just made it too easy for operators to help themselves to some extra cash when they discover that no one is looking.
What was also missing in this Task Force was a discussion about the other sources of funding through state and federal grants that provide charters an even easier path to steal money since the oversight of how these funds are spent is weak or non-existent.
yes; the most transparent scam over the past almost two decades since the arrival of NCLB has been the mind-boggling lack of oversight around how money forced into and onto districts in the name of “test score accountability” has been accessed.
Is California working on regulations for charter schools as far as finances? They just had an enormous charter fraud case. It’s nearly as big as the ECOT scandal in Ohio. If they don’t take action in the face of a scandal involving tens of millions of dollars when will they take action?
No one noticed the owners of the charter school robbed tens of million of dollars over a period of years? Are these school regulated at all?
It’s interesting to watch the goal posts move as far as charters. When they first pitched privatization 20 years ago the idea was it would “lift all boats”. Now the absolute best they offer us is privatization will not HARM students who remain in public schools.
That’s their best offer to students and families in public schools- we will not deliberately work to harm your students. And we pay them for this! I suppose we should be grateful they have reluctantly agreed to consider limiting harm to our schools, but isn’t this a VERY low bar? Talk about “low expectations”. We’re now paying thousands of public employees to not harm our students.
The recommendations of the task force are reasonable considering the composition of its members. It is a step in the right direction. California and other states will soon see that running parallel schools will eventually cost more for the imposed inefficiency. If they do not opt to put more money into these parallel systems, they will be forced to cut budgets. However, the charter schools often get outside contributions from wealthy individuals, but the public schools rarely have outside benefactors which puts them at a disadvantage.
California should pass a law that charters should have to share any outside money with public schools in the area. If public schools must share their operating budgets with charters, then the reverse should true be fair and provide some level of equity.
After ed reformers in California spend yet another year focusing exclusively on charter schools, perhaps a couple of these public employees could expend some energy and effort towards the existing public schools they promised to “improve” when they sold this agenda to the public.
When does that start? It’s been 20 years. We’re still waiting. When do the unfashionable “government” schools get some investment and attention?
Chiara: Charters are privately managed government schools in competition with the other government public schools managed by mostly publicly elected school boards. Maybe, reform of adding competition to public school government monopoly “didn’t lift all boats” because zero sum game competition for enrollment meant that some boats had to sink for others to raise.
Defenders of public schools and reformers wanting to privatize public education with charter school competition have these two differing world views that were brought to the Governor’s reform of charter school laws Task Force. The privatizers’ attitude, attached to their world view, was to make an omelette you have to break eggs and the negative outcomes was the cost of progress.
But, in the case of the privatizers’ privately managed charter school reform, defenders of public schooling were experiencing too many public school eggs being broken while promised outcome of the privately managed charter school reform were not delivering an overall better performance than the public schools under public management.
Within the Governor’s Task Force the true believers in public v. private competition were focused on defending charter v. public management competition as their priority. I’m not sure that there were many on the Task Force willing to oppose that ideology. The opposition to privately managed charter schools from union appointments was not ideological but experiential based from loss of union membership and draining of resources from nearby public schools.
Therefore, the Task Force privatizers were defending what most on the Task Force had no commitment. That is, few had a commitment to an ideology of defending public education from its privatization.
And, to defeat the privatization of public education will take mass movement committed to protection of public education. A mass movement that has no tolerance for privatization in any form and is pledged to defeat it in all forms.
It’s lamentable that the article list in a subject search for charter schools at Alliance for Catholic Education includes, “Diane Ravitch:…compliments for Catholic Schools”. Diane is the most important protector of public education in the world.
The role of Catholic leadership in policy that privatizes public schools has been underestimated. Ky. Gov. Bevin’s education summit which excluded press had one religion in attendance- Catholic. Privatizing billionaire, Rex Sinquefield gave a pile of money to the University of St. Louis (Jesuit) for an education center presumably similar to those funded by John Arnold.
ACE’s other articles under the subject, charter schools, include , “The Attraction of Charter Schools for Catholic Families in Phoenix”, “Expansion of Indiana Vouchers Could Further Catholic School Growth”, “Walton Family Foundation Looks Ahead to Next Stage of Transforming Education”.
I support Catholic schools. I do NOT believe that they should receive public funding.
A few years back, I was invited to lecture at Notre Dame University, a great Catholic University.
I lectured about why vouchers are a terrible idea.
In July at the meeting the National Education Association (NEA)) my amendment #1 of the Preamble to the NEA Constitution will be voted on. The NEA Preamble lists as a founding purpose of the NEA is to “advance the cause of public education”. My amendment would modify that statement by placing the word “secular” in front of public education.
In this age when the wall between church and state is being diminished by politicians playing to their religious right base, there is a need for the NEA to rededicate the organization to its long standing guiding policy of understanding that by public education the NEA meant it supports only “secular” public education.
NEA support of only secular education requires it to come to the cause of defending against conservative right wing leaning Supreme Court breaking down the wall between church and state.
It requires the NEA to oppose lax oversight and state charter school laws that in some states have permitted privately managed charter schools to be governed by inner city Catholics, to in Michigan allow former Protestant church schools to become charters, and for followers of Iman Gulen to govern over 150 charters in 26 states.
Privatization of public schooling, paired with state deregulation, has afforded religious affiliated governance of privately managed charter schools the opportunity wink wink to poke hoes in the wall separating church and state.
My argument to the NEA is that maintaining the wall between church and state is so important that the word “secular” must be joined with the two words public education in the NEA Preamble. Promoting and defending secular public education is what the NEA is about and a foundation principal of the National Education Association.
Great!
Jim2812
The NEA should pass your amendment unanimously. If the statistic reported is correct, 1 out of 3 NEA members voted for Trump, the organization’s leaders need to find an answer that stops teachers from voting against their interests.
The term “religious right” evokes the Koch/Paul Weyrich/ALEC evangelicals, who want to kill the profession that lifts the most women into financial independence. The ultra religious right needs to be understood as Catholics who want public dollars for religious schools and, who want women denied the right to birth control-a tradition of female subjugation should be opposed by all teachers.
At the center of the Federalist Society is Leo Leonard, a member of the ultra conservative, Catholic Order of Malta.
And no one in the Comments section above was surprised that a panel supposedly dominated by a charter industry majority (7 out of 11 if I remember correctly, hence the outcry a while back) nonetheless produced a report that, according to Diane, reached reasonable conclusions??? To highlight her passage above:
“When the report was released, it was clear that a majority voted for important reforms of the charter law, while the charter advocates fought against, for example, allowing districts to take into account the fiscal impact of new charters on existing public schools. This was their way of saying, “let us drive public schools into fiscal crisis.” The Task Force did not agree.”
But a majority of the Task Force was supposed to be pro-charter, so they denied their self-interest?!?
I am delighted that reasonable people can still talk to each other in this country and find compromises!!!
Apply your compromise admonitions to ALEC. It’s founder, Paul Weyrich (also the founder of the religious right and the Koch’s Heritage Foundation) identified the intent of parallel schools which is the destruction of public schools.The Weyrich manual is posted at Theocracy Watch.
As Diane says, take away the money motivation and the deform movement collapses.